“Okay, but your movement was right to left,” I corrected.
Her eyes twinkled. “I’m glad you were paying attention.”
I readied myself while Delph, Harry Two and Archie took collective steps back. Even though it was just a ball, I guess they were recalling the bookcase fiasco.
“On the count of three,” said Astrea. “One, two, three.”
She heaved the ball right at my head with great force.
I swept the air with my wand and said, “Embattlemento.”
The ball bounced off my conjured wall so hard that Astrea had to duck as it hurtled back at her. When she straightened, she looked at me in some amazement.
“That was quite good, Vega. Quite good indeed.”
I couldn’t hide my smile. But I could hide the fact that I had pictured in my mind a jabbit coming at me instead of the ball.
Yet I had done it. On my first try. I wanted to scream with joy. Until the next four times, when the ball hit me full in the face. We worked at it for a long while until every third time my conjured wall held.
“That is good enough for now. Let’s move on to something a bit more serious.” She pointed her wand at a corner of the room, gave it a flick and said, “Golem Masquerado.”
There appeared a large male. I was shocked at first, but then I could see that he was made of clay. I had used that material back at Stacks.
“Why do we need that?” I asked.
“I would much prefer you practice on something non-living,” said Astrea.
My smile faded as, without warning or preamble, she made a downward slashing motion with her wand and hissed, “Jagada!”
The clay male was suddenly covered in cuts. Had it been a real person, he would have been bleeding from innumerable wounds.
I stared from the slashed clay male to Astrea.
This is what she had done to me before. She knew it. And she knew that I knew it.
“Not pleasant,” she said grimly.
“You want me to do that?” I asked, my voice tremulous.
“Do you want to do it?” she shot back.
I looked at the clay figure and imagined it to be Delph or Harry Two instead.
I looked back at Astrea. “Not now.”
She looked at me for a long moment. “Then let’s move outside.”
As we trooped down the hall, Archie came up behind me and whispered in my ear. “It’s okay, Vega. Most of us couldn’t have done that our first time. In fact, some could never achieve it.”
“Why is that?” I whispered back.
“You have to really want to hurt someone.”
“Well, your mum seems to have no problem with it.”
“She was in a war, Vega. She’s killed before. And she’s had eight hundred sessions to brood. It gets to you, doesn’t it?”
We exited the cottage and passed through the green dome.
Archie stretched his arms and looked to the sky. “Been ages since I’ve been out of the cottage. Just breathe in that air.”
“How long ago did you stop taking the elixir?” I asked.
“The light you showed up on our doorstep.”
I was stunned. “You mean you age that quickly?”
“You age pretty much right away when the effects of the potion wear off. It just takes a bit of time before you actually die.”
He said this so casually that I could only stare.
“Well, I’m glad you decided not to die.”
He smiled. “Me too, Vega. Me too.”
Astrea raised her wand, gave it three parallel flicks and said, “Crystilado magnifica.”
Three feet away from us appeared an amaroc bounding through the fields, evidently in pursuit of prey. It was so close that I could see the red eyes, huge chest, bared, yellowed fangs and the cold breath bursting from its nostrils.
Delph screamed and jumped back. I yelled and pulled my wand, about to will it to full Elemental status so I could hurl it at the beast.
But Astrea held up her hand. “The amaroc is many miles distant. This spell allows you to see things far away as if they were very close. A useful device in the Quag, don’t you think?”
As I stared at the amaroc I said, “Very useful indeed.”
She waved her hand once more and the image vanished. She pointed toward where a forest was located.
“Now you try.”
I raised my wand, gave it the requisite three flicks and said, “Crystilado magnifica.”
It was as though we were in the forest. I could see everything. Everything!
As I watched, a deer came soaring into view. I had loved to watch them from atop my tree as they ran through the woods back in Wormwood. I grinned at Delph but faltered when his reciprocal smile turned to a look of horror.
I whipped back around and stared at the deer once more.
From out of nowhere a ghastly, quasi-transparent creature had appeared. With astonishing speed and unerring accuracy, it had plunged right at the beautiful deer, catching it in its ethereal grasp. The deer looked as stunned as I felt. Here it was running blithely along...
Then... then it was torn to shreds. And the thing consumed it. I tried to turn away, but something grabbed me by the shoulder and held me in place.
I looked around to see Astrea there, holding me, making me watch.
I turned back around. And the most astonishing thing happened. The monster that had killed the poor deer had become... the deer, albeit a ghostly, filmy white version of it.
Astrea waved her wand, said, “Finit,” and the entire image disappeared. She turned to me and said, “That was a wendigo. A malevolent spirit that can possess whatever it devours. Creatures such as this lie between you and your destination at the end of the Quag.”
My voice shaky, I said, “And you helped create all these horrible things.”
She looked taken aback by my comment, which, I had to admit, had been somewhat accusatory. “Not all of them, no. But by conjuring what we did, we laid the foundation for these creatures to spawn even greater horrors than the originals. The effects of magic can often be unpredictable, Vega. You must come to understand that.”
“And do you think it was all worth it?” I asked in a firmer voice.
“The answer to that is still to be written,” she replied just as firmly.
Viginti quattuor: A Sorceress of Sorts
The time raced by as my education continued. My true education.
By saying the phrase “Pass-pusay” and tapping my wand against my right leg, I had disappeared from the room we were in and transported myself to the hallway outside. I don’t know how I did it or why I had traveled to that particular spot, but Astrea was very encouraged that I had accomplished this on only my fourth attempt. I had even worked out some reverse curses with a degree of success. But I had also very nearly drowned poor Delph by miscasting the confounded spell Engulfiado.
I now lay exhausted on my bed. It didn’t seem that saying words and waving a little stick around could be tiring, but it actually involved far more than that. This mind, body and spirit requirement was much harder than laboring at Stacks.
Someone knocked on my door and I wearily raised my head. “Yes?”
“It’s Delph, Vega Jane. Can I come in?”
“Give me a mo’. I’m not decent.” I jumped up, threw on my cloak and then opened the door.
“You look... very, um, decent,” he said shyly.